


The Space Between Them

by Dadzawa



Category: BnHA, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, I wrote this instead of sleeping and I do not regret it, M/M, mention of dying, post raid arc, so does Kirishima Eijirou (but slightly less), so spoiler alert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-23
Updated: 2019-05-23
Packaged: 2020-03-10 02:08:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18929152
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dadzawa/pseuds/Dadzawa
Summary: There’s a lot of emotions after Kirishima comes back from the raid. Bakugou and Kirishima have Things To Talk About™.





	The Space Between Them

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Maplefudge](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maplefudge/gifts).



The ceiling of his dorm room, Katsuki decided, needed some fucking paint. Even in the dark, he knew it was oppressive, bare cement with all the comfort of a prison cell. Regardless, he didn’t really have a choice. It was stare at his ceiling in the dark or stare at the wall separating his and Kirishima’s rooms in the dark, and neither of those options included soothing brainwaves as a benefit. 

Thus, the ceiling. 

It felt like hours were passing, there in the dark of his room; when he looked at his alarm clock, it was only 8:32. Katsuki grumbled violently and turned on his face, stuffing his whole head underneath his pillow. Every inch of him felt itchy, just underneath the skin where he knew no amount of scratching would ease it. He felt restless. 

And he couldn’t stop fucking thinking about Kirishima. Specifically, that Kirishima had gone on a fairly high-profile mission as a hero…

…and Katsuki wasn’t there by his side. 

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck him sideways with a goddamn cactus, and if the first four times hadn’t been enough to drive the sentiment home, _fuck._ Before Katsuki could second-guess himself, he yanked his head out from under his pillow and reached for his phone. 

Me: you up?

Shitty Hair: yeah  
Shitty Hair: what’s up bro?

Me: you’re in your room right

Shitty Hair: dude u realize u don’t have to ask to come over  
Shitty Hair: doors unlocked, come by whenever

Katsuki _tsk_ ed and threw his blankets aside, not bothering to grab his phone on his way to Kirishima. 

The bright lights of the hall made him blink momentarily, caught off-guard by the contrast. He just shut his eyes and let muscle memory guide him to Kirishima’s door. 

As promised, his door was unlocked, and Katsuki didn’t bother opening his eyes as he made his way to the bed. “Scoot over.” Without waiting, he flopped facefirst into the covers and rested for a moment, taking small comfort in the warmth where Kirishima fit against his side. 

“I thought you’d be asleep by now. Since you have your classes tomorrow and all.”

He grunted. 

“What’s on your mind, Bakugou?”

Instead of answering, Katsuki turned on his side and opened his eyes. Lying not three inches away from him was Kirishima, whole and alive and with shadows behind his eyes that had no fucking business being there. He, in turn, rolled onto his side to mirror Katsuki, hands trapped in the space between them. 

Katsuki reached out and gently grasped Kirishima’s hand. He chose to focus on that contact instead of looking him in the eye. “You fought hard today.” It wasn’t a question. 

There was a long moment of silence. When he finally spoke, it was slightly raspy. “Technically yesterday, but…yeah. I fought.” His voice had an off note, just something slightly wrong in the timing, the phrasing, the intonation, but Katsuki was too wrapped up in his own head to take the time to dissect his reaction the way he normally would. 

“And I– I wasn’t there.” His grip tightened at the admission, but that’s the only emotion he allowed himself to show. 

He heard Kirishima take a breath, maybe to say something back, but Katsuki could feel the emotions surging and knew if he didn’t say his piece _right fucking then_ he would probably do something really fucking embarrassing. So he forged ahead. 

“You got hurt. And I wasn’t there. Because I don’t have my fucking license, because I couldn’t be more like you in the shitty exam, cuz I can’t take my head out of my ass for more than two fucking seconds and you went on a raid and got hurt and _I wasn’t there.”_

“Bakugou—”

He took a shaky breath, cut off anything Kirishima might have been trying to say. “We’re equals, yeah? So why am I the one staying behind, sitting on my ass and twiddling my fucking thumbs while you’re fighting and getting better and better and getting hurt—”

“Bakugou—”

“—and I can’t do a damn thing for you? If—”

_“Bakugou—”_

“—I had been there, maybe you wouldn’t have been hurt so bad or maybe we both would’ve, I don’t know but fuck—”

_“Katsuki.”_

He abruptly stopped mid-sentence at the sound of his name and took a deep, shuddering breath. Wetness against his cheek registered finally, and he realized he had started to cry. 

“Fuck,” he choked out, ducking his head and starting to pull his hand away from Kirishima’s to wipe his face. 

“No. Let me.” And there was a hand that wasn’t his on his face, gently wiping at the moisture there. A hand that reached across the space between them. Katsuki shut his eyes and tilted his face into the contact, letting the even rhythm of Kirishima’s thumb on his cheek soothe him. It eventually slowed, then stopped altogether, but he left his hand cupping Katsuki’s face. 

“I broke.” 

His eyes flew open and he looked at Kirishima. The shadows weren’t behind his eyes anymore– they were at the forefront, and Katsuki knew they were close to what had been bothering him so much he decided to withdraw to his room so much earlier in the night than normal. 

He chuckled weakly, a sound Katsuki didn’t like. Fucking hated it, in fact. “This guy– he said his name was Rappa. He hit…he hit like a bullet, Katsuki. I could barely take five hits before Unbreakable started to crumble. And then he didn’t stop, and I hit the wall, and I broke. I _broke,_ Katsuki.”

“Kirishima—”

But now it was his turn to stare blankly at their clasped hands and ramble, word vomit out all the thoughts that had been festering in his head since the raid. “And Fatgum kept fighting, kept absorbing punch after punch, and all I could do was stand there—”

“Kirishima—”

“—and be absolutely fucking terrified. I thought I was going to die, Katsuki! Because I thought I had improved so goddamn much and I—”

_“Kirishima—”_

“—just charged in without thinking and then I _broke,_ Katsuki—”

 _“Eijirou.”_

Just like when Kirishima had said his name, when Katsuki used ‘Eijirou’ the disjointed rambling stopped. He took a few deep breaths and made to take his hand off Katsuki’s face so he could wipe the tears on his own. 

“Fuck off dipshit,” he growled, and switched the hand that was holding Kirishima’s so he could freely wipe the wetness off. When he was done, he left his hand on Kirishima’s cheek the way he left his hand on Katsuki’s. “What happened next.”

He took one more shaky breath and started talking, slower this time. “Fat was losing. And then I thought about you. How you said if–if I refuse to go down, that means I’m stupidly strong, yeah? And then I figured…if I break, I can just harden again and it’s like it never happened. And then I moved.”

“So you broke. And then you got back up,” Katsuki whispered with a tinge of awe. 

“Yeah. I did. I broke and then I got back up. But, Katsuki…it was you who got me to move again,” he breathed. The backs of their hands must have been the most riveting sight, given that neither of them could look away. “I thought of that, sure, but I also thought that if I stayed still I might have a chance to live. But living like that…I wouldn’t have been able to look you in the eye again. Katsuki—” and here his gaze shifted from their hands on the bedspread to Katsuki’s face, and the weight of that gaze drew his own up to match it, “—you were with me. Not physically or anything, but you were with me. You’re always making me stronger, whether you’re next to me or not.”

“Making you stronger. By pushing you into a fight you could’ve—”

He stopped himself, choking on the rest of that sentence, realizing exactly what that would’ve meant. They were in training to be professional fucking superheroes, for fucks sake. Death was going to be a possibility for them every goddamned day. Katsuki knew that from the moment he set foot on UA’s campus. 

It had just never felt so real before. 

“We’re going to be heroes, Katsuki.”

“Yeah, I fucking know. You and me, we’re gonna be the strongest fucking pair out there. Unbeatable.” 

“Damn right.” And his smile was back. Not a large one, nothing more than a slight tilting of his lips and a tiny flash of shark teeth, but it reached his eyes. Eyes devoid of shadows. Katsuki felt his own face stretching into a matching expression. 

Kirishima sighed and closed his eyes, shifting his head until their foreheads touched. He used his grip on Katsuki’s face to pull him closer. “What is this, Katsuki?”

He frowned slightly. “What is what?”

“This.” One of his fingers stood up and twitched back and forth, from Katsuki to Kirishima and back again. “Us. What are we, really? Cuz there was one more thing I thought about, when I thought death was in my near future.”

“What did you think about?”

“I thought about what a shame it would be if I died and never got to take Bakugou Katsuki on a date. It would be even worse if I _didn’t_ die and still couldn’t take you on a date, cuz of the whole never-able-to-look-you-in-the-eye bit. So I swore to myself that if I won, and I lived, I would confess and ask you out. So, Bakugou Katsuki,” he summarized, opening his eyes and staring into Katsuki’s. “I like you. Will you go on a date with me?”

Katsuki hummed, trying to mask the way his heart rate skyrocketed. “On one condition.” At Kirishima’s inquisitive look, he elaborated, changing his grip on Kirishima’s hand to interlock their fingers. “Be my boyfriend, Kirishima Eijirou.” 

Kirishima grinned brighter and goofier than anything Katsuki had seen before then. “I can do that, Katsuki.”

He knew his own grin was just as bright and goofy as he gently knocked his head against Eijirou’s, closing his eyes as he felt the siren call of sleep. He yawned. “Shut up idiot, I gotta get up early tomorrow.” But there was no heat behind the words. 

Eijirou hummed happily. “Sorry, I’ll let you sleep. Sweet dreams, Katsuki.”

“G’night, Eijirou.”

And they fell asleep like that: foreheads pressed together, legs tangled, fingers intertwined in the space between them.

**Author's Note:**

> I almost titled this Ceilings, but in the end The Space Between Them was more emotive and thematic and I liked it better lmao 
> 
> They woke up the next morning a literal pile of tangled limbs. Kiri didn’t want to let Baku up and that’s why he’s late for the class. I assume there’s a similar reason on Todoroki’s end…
> 
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> Fuck now I wanna write THAT fic, too…
> 
> Feel free to leave feedback!! Every five comments replace an hour of lost sleep


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